I have a Dell Inspiron 15R, with Alps Touchpad. This touchpad is recognized as PS/2 Mouse, so basically it works as one, Left/Right Click. Horizontal & Vertical Scroll don't work. I read several posts, and All talk about some patch or some ubuntu's package that solve the problem. I have kernel 3.2.12. And I tested 3.2.16, 3.3.7 from gentoo sources and 3.3.7 from vanilla Sources. And the problem still there.

I try to apply patch 2600_Input-ALPS-synaptics-touchpad.patch, but apparently the kernel is already patched!.

There is an Archlinux or Ubuntu package psmouse-elantech-v6.tar.bz2, with sources to compile a module, but I don't know how exactly use it on Gentoo.

me ~ $ grep -i mouse /usr/src/linux/.config
CONFIG_INPUT_MOUSEDEV=y
CONFIG_INPUT_MOUSEDEV_PSAUX=y
CONFIG_INPUT_MOUSEDEV_SCREEN_X=1024
CONFIG_INPUT_MOUSEDEV_SCREEN_Y=768
CONFIG_INPUT_MOUSE=y
CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2=y
CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_ALPS=y
CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_LOGIPS2PP=y
CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_SYNAPTICS=y
# CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_LIFEBOOK is not set
# CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_TRACKPOINT is not set
# CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_ELANTECH is not set
# CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_SENTELIC is not set
# CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_TOUCHKIT is not set
# CONFIG_MOUSE_SERIAL is not set
CONFIG_MOUSE_APPLETOUCH=m
CONFIG_MOUSE_BCM5974=m
CONFIG_MOUSE_VSXXXAA=m
CONFIG_MOUSE_SYNAPTICS_I2C=m
CONFIG_MOUSE_SYNAPTICS_USB=m
# CONFIG_HID_HYPERV_MOUSE is not set
# CONFIG_USB_IDMOUSE is not set

Edit!
Wow - keep having to edit this post - seems if it's too long it throws out the formatting of subsequent posts whether I enclose it in [\quote] or [\code] tags or without tags. I suspect it's something in the gumph at the bottom of the file - possibly an escape character or something sneaking about.
Anyway, i've cut off the end part - it was only relevant to the nvidia gfx I have, so not pertinent to this problem.

Last edited by IncredibleMrT on Thu Oct 25, 2012 11:43 am; edited 3 times in total

Anyone have any ideas where I might be going wrong?
Any, and all, help is appreciated.

Well, sorry, I got puzzled. It looks like your kernel does not detect touchpad as touchpad. So it seems it is something in kernel configuration (which I don't see what could it be) or synaptics driver.
Are there any BIOS options related to touchpad ? Like disabling it ?

Hi.
No, there doesn't appear to be. All looks as you'd expect. It's an issue with a lot of new(er) Dell models. I've seen on some distros that there is a fix, but i'm unable to get them to be effective on my system.

I've got the same problem with Dell Inspiron 7720. I do not know for sure if my touchpad is Synaptic or ALPS but in all logs and /proc/bus/input/devices it is listed just as "PS/2 Generic Mouse". I have activated PS/2, Synaptic PS/2 and ALPS PS/2 options in kernel. Synaptic xorg driver is also installed. Have not found any solution jet.
And I've just remembered that touchpad special features (like scrolling) worked in the pre-installed Ubuntu. Unfortunately I have no that installation anymore.

A friend of mine owns Dell 15R Inspiron N5110 and my is 17R 7720. They are close enough so I decided to perform some comparison tests. The initial basic symptom is that in

Code:

dmesg | grep PS

I can see that my kernel treats touch-pad as a generic mouse while friend's kernel sees the right ALPS. The first thing I've done - I've taken friend's kernel config and changed my until there was no diff between

Code:

cat config | grep MOUSE

With this config kernel still reports my touch-pad as generic mouse. Ok, I went further and tried to boot with the binary of my friend's kernel. Result was the same - at my laptop it sees just a generic one. By the way, I use the kernel 3.6.11 gentoo-sources and my friend the 3.5.7. Some time ago he also used 3.6.11 and his touch-pad worked even though.
As all this happens in dmesg without even Xorg started, it apparently has nothing to do with X configs and drivers - the question is only in kernel and hardware.
It seems very unlikely to me that Dell has changed touch-pad model from 5110 to 7720 but I have no idea how to check it for sure (is there anything like lsPS/2 which tells the chip ID?)). The other possibility is that something in the boot environment prevents kernel from loading the proper driver, but again I have no idea how to test it.

You could try to put the patched alps.c and alps.h from here in /usr/src/linux/drivers/input/mouse/ and rebuild the psmouse kernel module.

good luck.

Thank you for suggestion! I've finally tried it and it did pan out!
Still I'm confused because according to my previous observations 5110 has no problems with 3.6.11 gentoo-sources which led me to a thought that the patch has already been included there. Something is definitely wrong in this story)

You could try to put the patched alps.c and alps.h from here in /usr/src/linux/drivers/input/mouse/ and rebuild the psmouse kernel module.

good luck.

Thank you for suggestion! I've finally tried it and it did pan out!
Still I'm confused because according to my previous observations 5110 has no problems with 3.6.11 gentoo-sources which led me to a thought that the patch has already been included there. Something is definitely wrong in this story)

I tried them both and the touch pad is just dead without them its a detected as a ps2 mouse
I tried the alps_dump and it says my pad is not an alps.
strange.
To bad lspci and lsusb does not give me anything to go off of._________________Donate to Gentoo